Petition to Save Le Corbusier's Ronchamp

[Jorge Otero-Pailos]

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Ronchamp/
I just received this petition. Those of you interested in the work of Le Corbusier should consider signing it.

[Patrick Ciccone]

How does this reach the Ministry of Culture, and is it after a certain number of signatures have been collected? Are the first few signees behind the initiative?

[Dolores Fazio]

Could you please post an English translation?

[Jorge Otero-Pailos]

Here is the May 23 2008 position letter from Maristella Casciatto, Chair of Docomomo International:


"Dear Friends and Colleagues,
As Docomomo’s chair, I wish to inform you about the highly sensitive project which is presently undergoing at Notre-Dame du Haut at Ronchamp in France. As such, the project which was commissioned to Renzo Piano consists of new entrance facilities (parking) and accommodation for nuns (12 cells for Clarisse sisters) to be built at the foot and on the slope of the hill on which Le Corbusier erected the chapel between 1950 and 1955. A cross-section of the project (courtesy Renzo Piano’s workshop) can be viewed on-line at the following link: http://edwardlifson.blogspot.com/2008/04/help-ronchamp.html
As you all know, Piano’s project, which has recently been endorsed by the French Ministry of Culture, is stirring up an international battle and several one-line petitions are being circulated. Therefore, I thought important to share with you my views on this project.
First, because any architect or architectural historian who ever visited Ronchamp is aware that the ethereal beauty and exceptional loneliness of the site, with its far open view towards the Alps, should be left untouched. Going up slowly the rocky hill, without being distraught by any other built or planted interference, fully participates to the unique emotional and aesthetical experience that a visit to the chapel always stirs and remains lifelong beyond any religious credo.
Second, because in the specific case of Ronchamp it is our duty to remain faithful to Le Corbusier’s vision. It is important here to remind that it is one of his unique project for which he clearly expressed a strong wish not to see any other building erected next to it. In a letter sent to André Malraux in 1959, he asked for the listing of the building and its surroundings to prevent future developments. Ronchamp’s hill was seen as a “buffer” zone of silence around the chapel and it should remain as such. Even more in the case of a site that we can afford to keep unbuilt (Ronchamp does not suffer from any urban or speculative pressure). We are all aware of the fragility of the place and any new built addition would interfere with the pristine nature of the environment.
And third, because even if Piano’s discreet and subtle project elaborated in collaboration with the landscaper Michel Corajoud and the horticultural engineer Claude Guinaudeau is highly diluted in the landscape — the project is composed of a landscaped parking and almost invisible small square cells half sunk into the hill — no one can say what it will become. The frontier between small cells for nuns built by a worldwide renown architect and hotel rooms rented to visitors can be far too thin! Ronchamp Clarisse’s community might swiftly become a international hotel for visitors in needs of holistic architectural experiences. And, even if this is only a faint speculation, we should not take this risk which would definitively ruin Ronchamp genius locus.
Those are the reasons why I think it is important for Docomomo members to engage in the current debate and to sign up the petition which asks the French Minister of Culture to relocate the project farther away http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Ronchamp
Please, feel free to share your thoughts and let’s make this controversial case be an opportunity for Docomomo to play its role of international platform of exchange and discussion on the meaning of modern heritage, on the safeguard of modern architecture and on the attention we should give to a modern monument!
Thanking you again for your attention,

Maristella Casciato
Chair / Présidente

ps: As additional information on the project and historical data, see the report written by Gilles Ragot which can by downloaded on Le Corbusier Foundation’s website at http://www.fondationlecorbusier.asso.fr/Rapport%20Ronchamp.pdf. This report offers a full understanding of the past and present situation and of Le Corbusier’s intention about his own design of the Ronchamp’s Chapel.



International committee for
documentation and conservation
of buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the
modern movement

Docomomo International
Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine
Palais de Chaillot
1, place du Trocadéro
F-75016 Paris
t [phone]
e [e-mail]
w docomomo.com
"